Quality or Speed?

The story: They both agreed to raise the quality bar. Then he spent three weeks refining a logo — two versions, barely distinguishable. She was baffled. Quality takes time, he said. Three weeks on a logo tweak? she replied. They had agreed on the standard but never on what it applied to, or at what cost.

What it means for organisations: "Raising the quality bar" sounds like an unambiguous good. But quality always exists in tension with speed, scope, and resource. When a team commits to higher quality without defining where it applies, what good enough looks like, and what trade-offs are acceptable, every person draws their own line — and some draw it in places that stop everything else moving.